Here’s an excerpt from a recent post by Emily Bennington at her website. She is the co-author of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job with Skip Lineberg and, more recently, of Who Says It’s a Man’s World: The Girls’ Guide to Corporate Domination. Also, Emily has just completed an interview by me.
To read the entire article, check out others, and sign up for email alerts, please click here.
To read the interview, please click here.
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A few years ago when I worked in corporate accounting, my boss and I had a meeting to discuss my salary.
I knew what was coming.
Our firm had recently gone through a merger and, instead of being a big ol’ marketing fish in a small pond, I was now a regular ol’ marketing fish in a big pond. (To give you some context, after the merger I went from being the onlyperson in the company responsible for marketing to being one of 20 people with my exact same role.)
I was making more than all of them.
In some cases, almost double for the same work.
Sure enough, it didn’t take long for the folks at headquarters to pick up on the gap – it was an accounting firm, after all – and so the request came down for more “alignment” in my paycheck.
The meeting with my boss was to determine how much.
So he brings me into his private conference room, and he begins to lay out the facts.
“Emily, as you know, since the merger your role has changed a bit.”
“We now have more resources to help deliver the projects you worked on exclusively in the past.”
“In looking at your compensation package compared with….”
Right then, without warning and without thinking, I burst out with“I know, I know. I make too much.”
It was supposed to be a joke (I guess) but my boss didn’t laugh. Instead, he looked at me rather quizzically and said, “Well, actually I was about to say that everyone else with your level of responsibility makes too little.”
Great. Now I’m that girl.
The one they talk about in workplace studies.
The one they pull out of the research and say, “See?! Women really DO have less confidence.”
Sadly, I haven’t gotten much better on this front.
I still grossly undervalue my work – and I know I’m not alone.
You’ve probably done it too.
The question is, “Why?”
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To read her answer to that question, please click here.
To read the interview, please click here.